global food losses

The first time I bought celery in a
Manila grocery store, I was surprised to find the stalks still crowned with
leaves. Accustomed to the neatly trimmed, plastic-bagged bunches in American supermarkets,
I was mildly peeved over the extra effort I had to make to cut off the tops,
even if it involved nothing more than a solid thwack of a chef’s knife to
decapitate those unwanted greens. I swept them from the cutting board into the
trash without another thought, blithely unaware that I had just added to the
more than 200 pounds per person of
edible food discarded around the world last year.